This is one of a series of news items from abstracts of studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as complied by Dr. David Meldrum, Scientific Director of Reproductive Partners. We appreciate the enormous amount of work it takes to compile and comment on these abstracts.
The question often comes up: Does a man’s level of exercise and diet affect his sperm count.
An abstract from ASRM’s annual meeting provides evidence that it does have an effect. Dietary glycemic load (total carbohydrate and glucose response) was found to be inversely related to sperm concentration (count) in very active young men (average of 11 hrs vigorous exercise per week). This study did not address other important sperm parameters such as motility and morphology.
The reason for that finding may be that very active individuals commonly load up on sugar and carbs. Sugar inhibits vascular nitric oxide and therefore may reduce testicular blood flow. We recommend that more moderate activity is advisable for infertile males, although antioxidants may reverse some of this effect of sugar.